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A friend bought the TS ap, but got frustrated how magnifying the cards obscured the board, so he bought a copy of TS to have a deck of cards to rifle through instead.
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Aug 9, 2020 19:02
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I’ve gone through a love hate cycle with TS and I’m currently playing and enjoying it again. This was driven in part by the release of Imperial Struggle and wanting to have a good mindset for comparison when I play that, but after hearing some reviews and reading the rules some of the changes sound great and some have made me enjoy TS more. The game is also carried heavily by your interest in the history as presented which I’ve also come around to. When viewed as a satirical take on domino theory, containment, and the overall pissing contest that created the world we have today it works much better thematically than as a simulation of history.
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Aug 9, 2020 19:38
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food court bailiff posted:Twilight Struggle on my iPad made me realize I honestly don’t have much love for Twilight Struggle.  I binge played and then I realised there’s a lot of reasons why I don’t like the game
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Aug 9, 2020 19:50
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 Do any of you have cats, and if so, how do you protect games in progress? Over the past few days I was working through the Falling Sky tutorial, reading rules and history as I go. I was pretty psyched to sit down and play the rest of the game flying solo today, but found my board completely hosed up by the feline felons living in my hovel. I had been stacking upturned game boxes over the pieces, which had been working fine, until last night when they must have had some kind of rear end in a top hat cat fight on the table.
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Aug 9, 2020 21:18
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food court bailiff posted:
It's not easy. My GF is obsessed with baskets and there are some large enough to cover a game and using a heavy book you can hope they don't decide to start reenacting wrestlemania on there but there are no guarantees and frankly the bigger the mystery the greater their desire to see what the hell is under there...
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Aug 9, 2020 22:00
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If I've enjoyed Descent and Mansions of Madness, would Journeys in Middle-Earth be a good choice? I've been meaning to get a LOTR themed game (besides the LCG) and I've seen it on my FLGS's online catalog.
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Aug 9, 2020 22:24
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food court bailiff posted:
It's a pain in the rear end, but your best bet is probably just to take detailed photos of the game state and then put it away for the night. That'll also prevent pieces from being batted under furniture, etc. Stickman fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Aug 9, 2020 |
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Aug 9, 2020 23:04
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food court bailiff posted:
Ask me about leaving Civilization up as a kid at one of my birthday sleepovers and waking up to Egypt wrecked by its feline deity.
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Aug 9, 2020 23:16
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Train your cats not to sit on your table.
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Aug 9, 2020 23:24
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Put a dog on the table
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Aug 9, 2020 23:26
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KPC_Mammon posted:Train your cats  I recommend giving them a their own special location to build their sawmill
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Aug 9, 2020 23:29
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radlum posted:If I've enjoyed Descent and Mansions of Madness, would Journeys in Middle-Earth be a good choice? I've been meaning to get a LOTR themed game (besides the LCG) and I've seen it on my FLGS's online catalog. Nooooooo. Check my post history in this thread for way too many words on the subject. Edit: (God there were even more words than I remember) "Someone asked earlier about FFG's Journeys in Middle Earth and I've finally played enough to give a bit of a review. I think it's a swing and a miss. For those that don't know, it's another FFG app-driven adventure game. While the pieces make it look like Descent 3.0 it's actually much more of an adventure game than a dungeon crawler. 90% of the game is going to be wandering around and interacting with tokens on the board and combat is more of a speed bump than the heart of the game. The fundamental mechanic is a deck each character gets that's built from basic cards, class cards and character cards (So Legolas the Hunter gets a slightly different deck from Legolas the Burglar which is very different from Bilbo the Guardian) and the deck slowly expands as your character gets experience. The deck is made of tiny cards, some of which have success markers on them or inspiration markers which can become success cards if you spend a limited resource to make them so. Every time you interact with anything on the board you'll test a skill and flip that many cards over looking for successes. So if Legolas tests agility, he'll flip 4 cards. If he tests his spirit he might only flip two. Some tests might need only one success while others will tally your successes in the app and give you different results depending on how you do. Both attacking and defending are tests just like anything else. The twist on all of this is that each turn you get to look at 2-3 cards from your deck, put one face down in front of you and put the rest on the top or bottom of your deck as you choose. So you get to stack your deck a little bit, and the cards you pull out grant you abilities like stronger attacks, boosts on tests or extra moves. In theory this allows you to prune your deck as well and offers some choices. If you prepare that strong card with a success marker on it, you'll get a cool ability but are less likely to succeed at the things you do. If you prepare the card without a success icon you get better at every thing you test at, but will have a pretty mediocre boost. It sounds interesting on paper and a little Gloomhaveny. Unfortunately it doesn't live up to its potential. For one, the app is utterly dominant. And yes, I know people have been whining since the Descent app came out that they should just be playing a computer game, but at least Descent and Imperial Assault had a board with tactical elements and things to track. When I played those games, everyone looked at the board trying to figure out their plans and the app just ran the baddies. Those games worked because everything people needed to know was on the board. In this game the board is nearly pointless. There are markers on the board to tell you where] you can interact with things, but there's no indication of what they mean. To get hints as to what skills might be needed or what they represent, you have to click on the tokens on the app. If you want to know what the monsters do you have to check the app. Want to know a monster's health? Check the app. Want to attack a monster? Click on the app. The board and the figures feel like a nifty illustration of the real game, which is on a computer. App-driven Descent, for all its faults, never felt like that. This is a game where every player is going to spend all their time staring at the computer screen because the information you need to play the game is not displayed on the board. The next problem is that while the deck mechanic described above sounds like it would add an element of player agency that would beat the old "roll dice and see what happens" FFG approach,, there just isn't actually much agency. You get to see 2 cards of your 15 card deck a turn and it's usually obvious which one you should prepare and whether the other one should go on the top or bottom of your deck. It's almost always a choice without an actual choice. After that you're just flipping cards from a deck, and while it sounds like you could manipulate that deck by preparing certain types of cards, it takes several turns to have any impact on the composition of your deck and as mentioned above, you don't really get all that much agency regarding what you're preparing. So what sounds like a cool mechanic just ends up being another random number generator. It's very clear they took some inspiration from Gloomhaven, but unfortunately that inspiration seems to have been "everyone needs a deck of cards." Add to that it's an adventure game with FFG's usual writing quality. So if you thought world building and storytelling might give it a boost, think again. If Gloomhaven's storytelling was a C-, this a D. So really, I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone. People looking for an adventure are going to be disappointed by the writing and Gloomhaven/Descent players are going to be disappointed by the lack of agency or interesting combat. Old school board gamers are going to hate the app being the center of the game. It isn't so terrible it isn't worth playing and I'll certainly finish the campaign but I'll probably sell my copy after that. It's a shame because there's a cool idea here with apps intersecting with board games, but I much preferred the style of limited app involvement a la Descent or Imperial Assault than I do this approach." Ohthehugemanatee fucked around with this message at 23:41 on Aug 9, 2020 |
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Aug 9, 2020 23:34
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They make these domed net things you can put over cribs in order to prevent cats from jumping in and potentially smothering a newborn. That’d probably work for your aloof hellbeast.
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Aug 9, 2020 23:35
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KPC_Mammon posted:Train your cats not to sit on your table. You can do this by leaving tinfoil out on the table overnight. For some reason they loving hate walking on it, to the point they'll jump up once or twice and then never again! (Well, occasionally, but then you can put foil out again to remind them).
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Aug 9, 2020 23:37
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Some cats are more special than others. It's like toddler-proofing for 10-20 years. I had a 3-person group going at work last year, and we managed cold plays of two campaigns and some standalones of Arkham Horror: LCG. We took a hiatus for a lot of reasons and still trying to figure out how we'd get a session on line that felt fun without me need to GM and facilitate everything. It was reassuring to find out that Guardians of the Abyss is supposed to be that tough. Also setting up some automa for Warmaster, a Game Workshop 10mm fantasy miniatures system. A friend and I picked up unreasonable amounts of models for that while we could. Ditto for the Lord of the Rings 25mm.
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Aug 9, 2020 23:39
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My friend puts his cat in the bedroom while we're gaming because if we don't he'll just run across the table constantly. He got out of the bedroom a few weeks ago when we were tearing down gloomhaven and he jumped into the box lid, I took him out, and he immediately jumped right back in.
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Aug 10, 2020 01:02
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Yeah but my 2yo could almost fit in the gloomhaven box. It looks really comfy.
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Aug 10, 2020 01:08
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Infinitum posted:Played the official Fort module tonight on TTS with a mate -Only the leader can improve their actions. Followers only use whatever suit(s) of the discarded card. -One action you choose has to be done in full, but the other action can be partially done. So if you have a public action to add two toys and a private to add two pizza, but your stuff has 3/4 toys and 2/4 pizza, then you have to do the private action if you want to do the public action (in either order). -As an addendum to the above, followers have to do the action in full. -Points from your fort level are added at the end of the game. This tripped up a lot of people, and it’ll make the game end prematurely if you forget. -If you are a follower, and there is a choice to gaining pizza or toys, then you have to choose what the follower took. -as leader, the gain either icon (blank hexagon) is not flexible when accompanied by the multiplier icon. So Gain Either X Glue means you get either all toys times the suit or all pizza times the suit. Two Gain Either icons, however, allows you two gain one of each if you so choose. Ordered my copy last week, and I cannot wait. I played a prototype at PAX East, and have been looking forward to it.
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Aug 10, 2020 05:29
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Infinitum posted:*takes notes on how to become a Board Game Youtuber* Ex-tabletop multimedia drone here. The reason for this is, filming in front of a blank, undecorated wall makes your video look incredibly cheap/unprofessional, and especially a stock off-white or beige wall can gently caress with your lighting on set and your white balance/color grading later. You will look like a serial killer. If you're a startup youtuber with no budget for set dressing, the wall of board games is a cheap way to break up the background. It also darkens the composition, so you can throw more light on the subject without glare issues. Granted, it's such an incredible cliche at this point that it still comes off as low-rent. Like come on. At least put a potted plant in one of your kallax cubes or something. Try to look like you have a personality beyond Consumption.
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Aug 10, 2020 07:55
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The funniest are the ones that rotate games around their shelves to do blatant product placement for their latest sponsored videos.
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Aug 10, 2020 08:10
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Just put on a hat and sunglasses and rant about boardgames in the driver's seat of your truck.
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Aug 10, 2020 13:29
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Poopy Palpy posted:Just put on a hat and sunglasses and rant about boardgames in the driver's seat of your truck. While driving.
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Aug 10, 2020 13:34
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Everyone knows that Callendale (sp) is best way to review. Just sit and smoke a pipe and ramble.
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Aug 10, 2020 14:24
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Spirit island is here check your mail! Time to be Angry Lizard that Fucks Up Gentrifiers and Cute Hummingbird Took a Wrong Turn and Got Lost or Volcano Dog Grumbles About His Yard. Flipping through things and from the previews I'm excited, it seems like the good kind of expansion where there's a few extra mechanics but most of the meat is from the designer figuring out interesting ways to play with mechanical concepts that already existed in the original design. Wife and I played a ton by ourselves and had mostly been playing with friends by the time Covid started so we've had a nice six month rest to prepare. By far our most played game in both actual plays and hours spent.
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Aug 10, 2020 14:48
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threelemmings posted:Spirit island is here check your mail! Time to be Angry Lizard that Fucks Up Gentrifiers and Cute Hummingbird Took a Wrong Turn and Got Lost or Volcano Dog Grumbles About His Yard. Was there a spirit island expansion kickstarter? I feel as if I preordered it somehow but I can't find it in any of my histories.
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Aug 10, 2020 14:57
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threelemmings posted:Flipping through things and from the previews I'm excited, it seems like the good kind of expansion where there's a few extra mechanics but most of the meat is from the designer figuring out interesting ways to play with mechanical concepts that already existed in the original design. Wife and I played a ton by ourselves and had mostly been playing with friends by the time Covid started so we've had a nice six month rest to prepare. By far our most played game in both actual plays and hours spent. I agree. I honestly did not like the Branch & Claw expansion very much but all the ideas it introduced feel like they really came to fruition in Jagged Earth.
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Aug 10, 2020 15:02
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CommonShore posted:Was there a spirit island expansion kickstarter? I feel as if I preordered it somehow but I can't find it in any of my histories. Yeah it went through Kickstarter, and all the emails have been coming to me as from Greater Than Games so double check your normal email addresses. US fulfillment started early due to shipping, other countries should start later this month I think. If you somehow missed it and did not order I shed a single tear as I hop on my two headed rain bird and flap away. I use one water element and an energy to repeat my action, shedding another tear for your sad plight. Edit: Straight White Shark posted:I agree. I honestly did not like the Branch & Claw expansion very much but all the ideas it introduced feel like they really came to fruition in Jagged Earth. I can see that, I love sharp teeth and keeper as spirit designs but I agree some of the power cards were a bit lackluster. Based on post mortem stuff it seems like the original game was meant to have tokens and all that and he pared it down, so all of these expansions have been adding things that were part of the original vision, in some ways OG spirit island isn't technically the "full game." The good part is reading his posts Reuss is really big on iteration and refining things, there's some spirits that were intended for Branch and Claw that didn't make it and he's said they've come out even better with a few years to work on them and make changes. So earlier sets introduced concepts and Jagged Earth is taking them to their fullest. I haven't gone through all the cards and updated spirit boards because I want to discover it with my wife but I'm real hopeful that this is just a distilled and ultra refined version of everything that was already good about SI. threelemmings fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Aug 10, 2020 |
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Aug 10, 2020 15:03
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It's not in my Kickstarter history so I'll buy it retail some time I guess
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Aug 10, 2020 16:15
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Btw, Branch and Claw was all part of the original base game design, the publisher told him to pull stuff out for an expansion.
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Aug 10, 2020 16:20
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threelemmings posted:Spirit island is here check your mail! Time to be Angry Lizard that Fucks Up Gentrifiers and Cute Hummingbird Took a Wrong Turn and Got Lost or Volcano Dog Grumbles About His Yard. I'm so jealous, my pledge hasn't even shipped yet 
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Aug 10, 2020 16:23
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Bottom Liner posted:Btw, Branch and Claw was all part of the original base game design, the publisher told him to pull stuff out for an expansion. Yeah, and I think it suffered from being sequestered into a smallish expansion. Tokens were pretty poorly integrated and at the time they felt like something that would have been better handled as unique features of the two spirits that actually used them instead of watering the deck down with a bunch of fiddly bullshit that most spirits don't have a lot of reasons to care about. JE has a lot more spirits that have incidental interactions with tokens and it makes them feel a lot more like a core part of the game instead of a kludgy add-on; many of those spirits were in the original design but got pushed off when the decision was made to keep tokens out of the base game. Eric has also mentioned a couple times that some of the tokens were probably overvalued a little in B&C's cards, making a lot of the token powers in the power deck unappealing if you don't already use them. JE includes some much better entry points for spirits to start dabbling with tokens.
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Aug 10, 2020 16:55
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My spouse and I are playing Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion together. I know the rulebook prohibits gold sharing, but is there any practical reason why? I was assuming it's some anti-powergaming measure where a full party could pool everything together and load up one person, but we've only hit mission 3 and thus far doesn't seem like an issue. Is there going to be an issue with allowing gold sharing, or is there some game-breaking issue down the road we're not aware of?
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Aug 10, 2020 17:32
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In the original game, I don't think there was any issue with gold sharing. It was a tacked on thematic rule to reinforce that you are a group of adventurers only bound together by the rewards (also why battle and retirement goals are a thing). Where I landed was this: it's a coop campaign; house rule whatever makes it fun for you. I prefer to leave the tactical rules in place and streamline anything relating to progression or the story.
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Aug 10, 2020 17:53
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Classes in gloomhaven are sort of balanced to be either good at looting or good at getting xp, so if you have your good-at-looting character throwing money at your good-at-xp character it could throw the balance off a bit. It also reduces the tension of in-combat looting a bit if you don't need to worry about the tradeoff because your teammate is doing it for you. Neither is gonna break the game though, if you really want to share gold. And you can always turn up the difficulty a level if you feel it's too easy. E: having "selfish" goals makes it feel more like you're playing your own character imo, as opposed to something like pandemic where you technically have a character in front of you but it's more of an ability that the group gets to use. misguided rage fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Aug 10, 2020 |
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Aug 10, 2020 17:53
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God I fucking love Diablo 3 gold, it even paid for this shitty title
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PRADA SLUT posted:My spouse and I are playing Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion together. I know the rulebook prohibits gold sharing, but is there any practical reason why? I was assuming it's some anti-powergaming measure where a full party could pool everything together and load up one person, but we've only hit mission 3 and thus far doesn't seem like an issue. The ease of gathering gold is different for different characters, and for each character there's kind of an intended pace of acquiring items to go with acquiring levels and perks. If you're sharing gold between an easy-looting and a difficult-looting character then you're kind of breaking that curve a bit. There's not going to be any major issues though, beyond perhaps losing the "your character" feel.
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Aug 10, 2020 17:57
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Yeah I'd say it's like 70% a thematic rule to encourage the semi-coop flavor Isaac was going for, and maybe 30% balance. However, the balance in Gloomhaven (at least in the base game) is all over the map to begin with. "Sharing gold" will make things easier and remove some otherwise-interesting decisions, but it isn't going to destabilize things any more than "someone unlocked one of the several busted classes and trivializes every mission until retirement". Subtitle might be better about this in the latter regard, though.
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Aug 10, 2020 18:01
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PRADA SLUT posted:My spouse and I are playing Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion together. I know the rulebook prohibits gold sharing, but is there any practical reason why? I was assuming it's some anti-powergaming measure where a full party could pool everything together and load up one person, but we've only hit mission 3 and thus far doesn't seem like an issue. The only time it would really throw stuff off is near retirement - you wouldn't want a character to sell all their stuff and bequeath their fortune to someone, as it would make that character's development weird.
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Aug 10, 2020 18:09
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All of my classes were AoE that depended on decent positioning. I never felt the choice between 'do the thing that lets us actually finish the scenario' and 'actually get gold' was interesting. I also didn't find it interesting that my buddy who played support classes retired both of his supports each with more gold than I had on all of my characters combined. Not to say that some people don't find the tension interesting or that I was playing well, just offering my experience
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Aug 10, 2020 18:17
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Shadow225 posted:All of my classes were AoE that depended on decent positioning. I never felt the choice between 'do the thing that lets us actually finish the scenario' and 'actually get gold' was interesting. I also didn't find it interesting that my buddy who played support classes retired both of his supports each with more gold than I had on all of my characters combined. I'm playing music note right now and I'm having that experience - it's really hard for me to get gold, even though I need probably 20 more tokens worth to be able to retire, since my positioning is often life or death for us.
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Aug 10, 2020 18:19
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Some of my Gloomhaven crew's funniest moments have revolved around huge coin grabs at wildy inconvenient times by different players. That tension has been pretty fun for us, but it is very much a group dynamic thing.
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Aug 10, 2020 18:23
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